Gen Z Diary: Suffering a hangover with friends? That’s a bonding exercise

Bearing witness to someone’s hangover is quite wholesome. If you can overlook the smell of alcohol radiating from everyone’s pores, that is. File picture

I am a firm believer that you cannot really be friends with someone until they have seen you at your absolute worst. If you can get through those moments, you’ll get through anything.

It’s easy to get along with someone who has had a full eight hours of sleep, is feeling good about themselves, their recent social interactions, and their recent decisions. We all have people in our lives that we will happily have coffee, or go to the cinema with, and nothing more. 

The type of people you’ll catch up with every few months. But only a select few can move beyond the bounds of polite coffee drinking. Can witness me curled up in a dressing gown on a Sunday morning, begging for a Lucozade Sport and Christly redemption, I mean.

Bearing witness to someone’s hangover is a privilege one must earn. My reputation couldn’t handle too many people having access to that kind of insight into the depths of my soul. The morning after a night out is a most vulnerable time.

Akin to the first day of your period, being in the airport at 4am, or having to hand a medical receptionist your urine sample; I can’t have just anyone in my company for such things. I am presenting the very worst of myself to the world in a most unflattering light. 

In moments like that, I need to have my hair brushed. I need to be spoken to in dulcet tones, and told things like, ‘No, you look stunning with last night’s mascara smudged into your under-eyes ’. I cannot overstate the significance of this person’s role in my hangover recovery.

Because being alone while hungover is a brutal experience. Alone with your thoughts, you begin to feel like you’re the only person capable of making such poor life choices. You’ll be filled with shame about how you should have known better than to put yourself in this position. 

The hangxiety will tell you that your friends are mad at you. You’ll realise your new lip liner fell out of your handbag during the night. You’ll wish you were organised enough to keep electrolytes in the house for these scenarios. And you won’t have anyone to console you in your turmoil.

But a hangover experienced with friends? That’s just a bonding exercise. Everyone wakes up in dribs and drabs, makes it to the kitchen to drink water and debrief the previous night’s antics with varying degrees of enthusiasm. 

It’s quite wholesome. If you can overlook the smell of alcohol radiating from everyone’s pores, that is. Sharing out paracetamol and cups of tea to start the day. You’ll know it was a big night when the morning debrief takes place outdoors.

A hangover can cause you to re-evaluate your life. You may seek comfort in reconnecting with nature. There’s just something about overwhelming nausea that only fresh air and grounding your bare feet in some damp grass can solve. 

In particularly bad circumstances, you may have to keep your eyes closed for fear that direct sunlight will finish you off. But if you’ve got a community of similarly ill people around you, there’s nothing you can’t endure together.

Because hangovers will bring you to do things you would never do under other circumstances. You’ll push the bounds of acceptable behaviour to the extreme. And I’m never going to judge someone for that. Desperate times and all that. You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do to survive. Maybe survival means that you’ll order ungodly amounts of food on Deliveroo. 

You’ll wake up feeling so dehydrated and so unwilling to get water from the tap that you’ll drink the dregs of a bottle of water that’s been on your nightstand for far too long. I’ve even heard a friend resorting to a weeks-old hot water bottle for middle-of-the-night hydration.

You might need to have your shower sitting down. And you might repeatedly seek reassurance from friends that you’re not in anyone’s bad books for dancing on a bar. But you’ll probably need some kind and compassionate friends to keep you from drowning in the shame of it.

Being in the presence of someone in the midst of a bad hangover is an ideal friendship litmus test. If someone has seen you in that place and continued to socialise with you afterwards, it speaks volumes. The cold sweats and kindness in the face of nausea combine to form an unbreakable bond.

To be clear, it’s not that I’m recommending hangovers to those who wish to forge deeper connections with people in their lives.

But they are not a bad way of testing the waters.